


i wrote this at midnight

by lawboy



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Miraculous, Freeform, Gen, abstract pretentious garbage with basically no plot, barely follows canon, there’s other people but they’re barely there, using adrien to vent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 06:30:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14231343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lawboy/pseuds/lawboy
Summary: Adrien thinks he has friends. Then he meets Nino and realises they’re all only acquaintances at best.





	i wrote this at midnight

**Author's Note:**

> This is the worst fucking garbage. I’m sorry

It was a class of paper people, with paint-on smiles and simple hearts. They were carefree, unburdened, and graced him with a distant kindness.

At first, it was enough.

After the nothing of home, the locked doors and hanging silence, even paper kindness was a blessing. It gave him warmth, and the timid part of him that felt discarded fell silent.

But then he met Nino, a spark of a boy whose amity was like a wildfire. Suddenly, the paper people felt like nothing, and in this new light he saw how fragile their connections were.

And the discarded voice cried “why aren’t they like him?”

It consumed him.

Was he not special enough? Was he not kind? Did he fail somewhere, show them how faulty he was?  
Why were their eyes so barren when turned to him, devoid of the joy their paintstroke mouths touted?

These people weren’t friends. They were never friends. They hated him. And it was his fault.  
The frightened boy inside him curled up and sobbed “what did I do wrong? I’m sorry. I’ll change, just tell me what’s wrong.“ As always, he was met with silence.

It was a self-feeding anxiety. When those people milled past, locked in conversation, their only topic was his wretchedness. When they laughed, they laughed at him. When they smiled, they were mocking. All their friendships stood to scream “this is what you’ll never have from us.”

When he was alone, he pulled his hair with nerve-sick hands and cried, silently so his father wouldn’t scold him. Tears and weakness were for little people, not perfect men and their porcelain dolls.

One day he left his mask at home, and Nino saw his red-stained eyes.   
“What’s wrong?”  
Two words;  
two syllables.  
That’s all it took to shatter what little he hid behind.

Tears and weakness were for little people. No one loves little people. No one wants a broken doll.  
Adrien cried in earnest, gasping so violently he hardly heard his friend’s frantic babbling.  
The paper people gathered round, watching the spectacle. They touched him, talked and mumbled. Taunting.

Above it all, the discarded voice screamed. And maybe he screamed too.   
He ran. Their bitter voices followed.   
Farther. Further. Until his mind was widowed of their taunts.

That empty house, who he once held in such contempt, who he once regarded as a cage— She took him in with open arms, held him in a silence that he now realised was not stifling but protective.  
And like a scuffed child, he crawled to his father for comfort.

“Why aren’t you at school?”  
He was so cold.  
Adrien’s breath caught, and he choked on the words in his throat.  
“What’s wrong with you? What are you crying about now?”  
The frightened boy was wailing “love me!”, without realising he didn’t deserve it.  
“Answer me, you stupid boy! Can’t you talk? Didn’t I raise you better than this?”  
 _Didn’t you?_

There was nothing for him here. There never was.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m sorry. I can’t write tbh and this is probably a mess and I’ll probably hate it in the morning.
> 
> In Origins, Adrien calls Marinette a friend despite barely knowing her. From that, I kinda imagined that he had a skewed perception of friendship, and saw any nice person as a friend. So in this story, he grows close to Nino, then realises his bond with his other classmates are very weak. And then his insecurities come along and fuck shit up.
> 
> But also it’s written in a super up-myself way because I wanted to use fancy words but I can’t write


End file.
